One of the issues that keeps appearing in the DSGL inbox is the hypothesis that mass public shootings are caused by adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs.  We at DSGL apply the same intellectual standards to this issue as we apply to the overall issue of guns, violence and gun control laws.  The following message was taken from an email written by our Director, Dr. William B. Rogers.

I am the director of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws, I'm on the Board of Directors for KeepandBearArms.com, and I am a psychiatrist with 20 years experience (12 of them on active duty in the US Navy).

I am deeply concerned about the fact that several of the shooters in the spate of mass shootings over the past few years have been using psychiatric medications. My greatest concern is that someone is going to draw the erroneous conclusion that psychiatric meds cause a person to become violent.

There is a certain element in the medical community that is what we call "anti-psychiatry." That is, they have been against the idea of using psychoactive medications for the treatment of mental illnesses since the modern era of treatment began (in the early 1960's). They do not accept the "medical model" of mental illness. I don't have time to do much more than briefly introduce this concept here, but you have probably heard the names of some of these notorious physicians: Thomas Szaz, Peter Breggin, etc. These people are known by the legitimate world of medicine to be mountbanks and gadflies.

They have made fortunes writing alarming books in which they warn the public about some "pharmaceutical company plot" to get everyone "hooked" on drugs for the benefit of the company stockholders. These gadflies fill their books and speeches with "data." Well, they have lots of numbers, often taken from open and uncontrolled surveys, but never generated from actual, rigorously designed, truly scientific studies.

These guys have done a lot of harm. Many times I've had to gently and diplomatically help a person realized the folly of these "anti-psychiatrists" so they would allow themselves to try a therapeutic trial of a medication I thought might help them beat their depression, or anxiety, or schizophrenia.

So, whenever somebody gets concerned because we hear about another shooter who was on a psychiatric medicine, I try to educate that person about the true facts. One of the bad things about some mental illness is it does indeed cause people to get violent or impulsively violent. After my years of experience, and after carefully reviewing hundreds of really good scientific studies on the matters, I have concluded that the psychiatric medicines don't make people violent. However, the illnesses the people had before they were ever medicated can fail to respond to the medication (in roughly about 15% of cases ) and those individuals will continue to suffer the effects of their gradually worsening illness. Some of those effects are homicidal manias and terrible violence.

I appreciate your concerns about these matters. I hope this overly long email has helped you see that those who claim that medications "cause" violence have ulterior motives NOT backed up by real science, and those who routinely prescribe the medications in a prudent and medically appropriate fashion are convinced by personal experience and by good scientific data that the medications truly "first do no harm" and very often help save the patients from a life of hell.

Best wishes,

W.Rogers,MD

Tyler, TX

In summary, we feel that blaming mass shootings on psychiatric drugs is as erroneous as blaming them on guns.  Just because many mass murderers have taken psychiatric drugs does not mean there is a cause and effect relationship.  In fact, many murders may have been prevented by these medications.  This concept should sound familiar to anyone who has studied the gun debate.  The real causes of violent human behavior are much too complex to blame on a single factor like guns or drugs.  Always look at the evidence...and be careful what you accept as evidence!

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